Asaf Lubin on Cyber Espionage and International Law
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 21 July 2023
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On June 16, the U.S. State Department discovered unauthorized access to its Exchange Online email services and reported it to Microsoft. Almost a month later, on July 11, Microsoft disclosed the attack, and attributed it to a China-based threat actor, which they call Storm-0558. The intrusion granted the hackers access to email accounts at the Commerce and State Departments, including Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, among other targets. Although no classified information was compromised, the cyber espionage campaign comes at a time of tension between the U.S. and China.
To discuss the significance of the latest cyber espionage campaign, Lawfare’s Fellow in Technology Policy and Law, Eugenia Lostri, sat down with Asaf Lubin, Associate Professor of Law at Indiana University Maurer School of Law and a Visiting Professor at Columbia Law School. They talked about what different types of espionage campaigns tell us about tightening U.S.-China competition, how international law can address cyber espionage, and the options available for governments to respond to these type of incidents.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair, that's patreon.com slash |
| 0:16.9 | LawFair. Also check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | No Bull, and The Aftermath. |
| 0:33.6 | But what do we do with these forms of cyber espionage gathering activity that falls below |
| 0:39.2 | the threshold of real use of force, below the threshold of a real and course of intervention |
| 0:46.1 | that is predominantly focused on the gathering passively of certain information through |
| 0:51.3 | zeros and ones coming in and out of your computer networks and information communication |
| 0:56.6 | technologies? Is that really an intrusion upon your sovereignty? |
| 1:02.3 | I am Okenia Luchte, LawFair's fellow in Technology Policy and Law, and this is the LawFair |
| 1:08.0 | podcast July 21st, 2023. On June 16th, the US State Department discovered an authorized |
| 1:16.0 | access to its exchange online email services and reported it to Microsoft. Almost a month |
| 1:22.6 | later, on July 11, Microsoft disclosed the attack and attributed it to a China-based threat |
| 1:29.1 | actor, which they call Storm 05-58. The intrusion granted the hackers access to email accounts |
| 1:37.3 | at the Commerce and State Departments, including Commerce Secretary Gina Romando among other |
| 1:42.9 | targets. Although no classified information was compromised, the cyber espionage campaign |
| 1:49.0 | comes at a time of tension between the US and China. To discuss the significance of the |
| 1:55.0 | latest cyber espionage campaign, I sat down with Asaf Lewin, Associate Professor of Law |
| 2:00.7 | at Indiana University, Moore School of Law, and a Visiting Professor at Columbia Law |
| 2:05.6 | School. We talked about what different types of espionage campaigns tell us about tightening |
| 2:11.1 | US China competition, how international law can address cyber espionage, and the options |
| 2:16.9 | available for governments to respond to this type of incidents. It's the LawFair podcast |
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